


Red Like Guilt

by rebelmeg



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Avengers Tower, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint and Nat are Besties, Gen, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha can cook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 06:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9644534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/pseuds/rebelmeg
Summary: Natasha is a brilliant cook, but she very rarely does.  Clint kind of knows the reasons why.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set really anytime after the Avengers movie, and in the Avengers Tower where they all live or have suites (maybe not canon, but I love it, so it's headcanon for me) to use as they wish. Clint has just finished a mission, and he's taking a day to clean up, stop by medical, and rest before heading home (Laura doesn't like seeing him all beaten up and exhausted).
> 
> Also, having never made or even eaten coq au vin in my life, I'm leaning entirely on my imagination and the recipe I found to describe it. If you spot any errors, rooster-related or otherwise, do let me know! I live in mortal fear of posting typos.

Clint closed his eyes as the elevator doors opened and the wonderful smells from the kitchen down the hall assaulted his senses.

Natasha was cooking.

And she was making her coq au vin.

He stepped out of the elevator, but stayed where he was for a moment, breathing deeply to take the smell of seared rooster, browned bacon, fire-steamed brandy, and simmering wine as deep into his nose as he could get it. She was probably just getting ready to put it into the oven, and it would be an agonizing hour and a half wait until it would be cooked, but he could live with that if it meant he’d be snitching tastes of Nat’s coq au vin in a couple hours, and having it for dinner later tonight.

Clint finally headed for the kitchen, and as he did, he turned the scents of the food and the reason it was such a special occasion over in his mind.

Nat didn’t cook. Hardly ever, though it was one of those things that she did very, very well, annoyingly like most everything else she did. She could probably cook just about everything, but she had a definite penchant for French cooking, and coq au vin was her specialty. She made it authentic, with an actual rooster instead of a roasting hen, one she cut down herself into serving pieces before she seared it in batches in her heavy cast-iron pan.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like cooking. On the contrary, cooking was something she enjoyed rather a lot, but she hated, _hated_ , cleaning up afterwards. She hated washing the dishes and wiping down counters and putting ingredients away with a venom that meant there was a reason behind it. Clint never asked what the reason was, and Natasha never told.

He had offered, and actually, several of the team members had offered, to clean up if she wanted to cook, but she had politely and firmly turned them all down. It was a mess she made, she said, and a mess that she would clean up. Clint knew it had to do with her obsession with consequences, something that was left over from her past of doing things that gave her nightmares, and not having the closure of consequences to quiet her feelings of overwhelming guilt. Red in her ledger. Red she couldn’t wipe out. And a lot of that red was blood, but not blood she shed. Blood she left behind, when the person she was sent to wipe from the earth didn’t come home to someone.

Natasha kept her feelings, and herself, close to her chest, buried within herself so that people didn’t see, unless she wanted them to. She was an expert at letting people see only what she picked, and she could be an actress in every way that counted. Clint had been allowed to see some of those depths she kept hidden away, and he understood keenly why she kept them that way. He understood why sometimes she had difficulty remembering who she really was, and who she put on for show.

He rounded the corner and came into the large, professional kitchen, just in time to see Nat open the oven door and slide in two large roasting pans. She’d done two roosters this time, since a lot of them were in the Tower, and his mouth watered as the smells of good food got stronger.

“I know my cooking is something to be admired, but really Clint. Loitering outside the elevator to get high on the fumes of it is a bit much.”

Clint grinned and took an apron off the hook on the wall. All of the aprons were ridiculous, and the one he grabbed was one that Darcy had added to the collection. It was bright blue, with red and white striped pockets, a pieced white star on the chest, and American flag ruffles all the way around the bottom of it. Steve flat-out refused to wear it, but everyone else did just to get him to sigh and roll his eyes because annoying Captain America was pretty dang fun.

Natasha was wearing Clint’s favorite, a hot pink number with a big, dark red lip-print on it and curly black letters scrawling out “Kiss the Cook”, and she pulled her phone out of the pocket to set a timer for the oven. “You wanna help me chop up some mushrooms?”

“Sure, lemme clear a spot for it.”

“No, I’ve got it.” Nat moved around, putting ingredients away and loading dishes into the dishwasher. Clint wet a rag and set it on the counter, and she took it a moment later and wiped off a spot on the large marble-topped island that functioned as prep space on one side, and bar-style seating on the other.

Clint fetched two cutting boards and knives, and they stood side by side at the island, de-stalking and slicing mushrooms while the aroma of wine-soaked chicken cooking permeated the air.

“You gonna let me have some when it comes out?” He asked with a cheeky grin, knowing what the answer was, but unable to keep from asking anyway.

“No, it's not good enough until it has rested, and you know it. But I might let you help me make eclairs.” Natasha used her foot to open the cupboard to her right, and rolled the slide-out garbage can forward with her toe. With expert flicks of her knife, she sent all the mushroom stalks on her cutting board one-by-one into the can, then leaned back while Clint pitched his in as well.

“You gonna make the good custard I like?”

“If you pipe the dough out for me.”

“That’s a deal I can strike.”

"You need to head home before tonight?" She asked, slicing a mushroom with lighting fast movements of the sharp blade.

"Nah, gonna get some sleep before I let Laura see me."

"And before your kids use you as a human playground."

Clint grinned. "That too."

They continued working in silence, which had always been just as comfortable as conversation between them, and by the time the coq au vin came out of the oven, Natasha had the rest of the recipe ready and Clint was piping five inch lengths of pastry dough onto parchment paper lined baking sheets. They had acquired a small crowd, Bruce and Tony had come down from the labs in search of food, and Steve had popped into the kitchen for the same reason, following his nose right to them. Natasha had to keep slapping hands away as they dipped in to the hot roasting pans for tastes and nibbles, but there was no anger in it. More like a resigned mother hen trying to keep her chicks in line.

While she slapped Tony's hand away from the meat for probably the fifth time, Clint sneaked a few of their prep dishes into the sink, and even scrubbed a few clean while Natasha's back was turned. She'd notice, but she wouldn't really mind. It was easier now, surrounded by people that were all as damaged as she and Clint were, to let some of her broken pieces inside stop cutting.

The conversations were idle, but pleasant, and Clint couldn't help but laugh at how unsatisfied Steve, Bruce, and Tony looked with their sandwiches as they kept sending longing glances at the coq au vin too far out of reach. A smile flitted on Natasha's face as well, and it spread into a grin when Clint "let it slip" that they were also making eclairs. Steve, who had actually had real eclairs from France before, looked utterly transformed at the thought of it.

Clint smiled again as he looked around at the group of them. It was good, having them there together. The world was crazy, and they were all broken, hurting people, but right now... it was good.


End file.
